Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Questionable Friends

(Published on 9. July 2022, 08:00 by Nordy)

This puzzle was inspired by (and is a remix of) the beautiful "Chaotic Friendliness" by thoughtbyte. If you have not yet solved that puzzle, I highly recommend that you do—both because that puzzle is exceptional, and because it will be a valuable warm-up.

The idea for this puzzle also comes from many hours of thinking about kolot's challenge: create a 9x9 chaos construction with only question mark clues, where all question mark clues are defined in the same way. However, creating that 9x9 is a daunting task—I found one with 32 solutions, but that still feels infinitely far away from something unique. So, I will instead leave you with this surprisingly tricky 6x6. Many thanks to kolot for testing and feedback.

I have included a link to my solution guide in a hidden comment below so that you can compare your solution path to mine, if desired. If you are interested in the solution guide but have not yet solved the puzzle, feel free to message me here or on Discord and I will be happy to send you the link. Enjoy!


Rules:

Chaos Construction: Place the digits 1 to 6 in every row, column, and irregular region. Each region is a set of six orthogonally connected cells that must be determined.

Friendly Region Sums—Clues are Odd Digits:

  • Question mark clues outside the grid represent any odd digit (1, 3, 5, 7, 9). The value for each outside clue must be determined while solving.
  • Each clue outside the grid gives the sum of the digits up to and including the first “friendly” digit from the clue’s direction. A digit is considered friendly if its value matches its row or column number.
  • All digits included in the sum are in the same region, and the digit after the friendly digit is in a different region.


Example: Here are some examples of friendly region sums. Friendly digits are flashed gray, and region borders are drawn in green.


Solve Online:

Solution code: Row 4 (from left to right) with dashes for region borders (ex: 26-4-513)

Last changed on on 9. July 2022, 19:19

Solved by marcmees, Jesper, Snookerfan, thoughtbyte, cmb, jkuo7, Yawnus, Banana, Dotty, zeecomoon, Xenonetix, Hyacinth, Playmaker6174, akamchinjir, Crul, yttrio, damasosos92, steeto, The Book Wyrm
Full list

Comments

on 24. September 2024, 16:38 by The Book Wyrm
Cool puzzle!
Pretty complex despite it's small size, and very impressive getting a solvable puzzle with only those ?s.

on 10. July 2023, 05:12 by damasosos92
Wow can't believe that so few question marks could lead to those interesting concepts.

on 10. July 2023, 00:54 by yttrio
Really intriguing concept and a fun solve! Very nice puzzle!

on 24. October 2022, 11:45 by Playmaker6174
Wow, what a weird and engaging puzzle! Figuring out the opening and then resolving the ending was quite a treat there :)

on 9. July 2022, 19:19 by Nordy
Difficulty adjustment down to 3 stars. Average from testing was between 3-4

on 9. July 2022, 16:44 by thoughtbyte
One of my favorite things about this community is the constant evolution of puzzles and ideas. I am very happy and honored to have inspired this wonderful puzzle. Thanks @Nordy!

on 9. July 2022, 14:11 by Snookerfan
Lovely puzzle! Thank you

Last changed on 9. July 2022, 11:28

on 9. July 2022, 11:28 by marcmees
nice one. Thanks. imo no more than 3*.

Difficulty:3
Rating:95 %
Solved:19 times
Observed:18 times
ID:000AF4

Variant combination Online solving tool

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Solution code:

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